Restaurants
Matthew Kenney, one of the most famous names in plant-based cuisine, has left a trail of burned investors, bounced paychecks, and graphic text messages.
Josie Duran overheard Matthew Kenney’s pitch many times.
As a lead server at Plant Food + Wine in Venice Beach, California, Duran often waited on Kenney, the restaurant’s chef and owner, as he entertained potential investors on the restaurant’s fig-tree-shaded patio, persuading them to trust him with their money for his ambitious culinary projects.
At a time when adopting a plant-based diet has become an environmental and ethical cause around the world, Kenney, 59, is among the world’s most famous vegan chefs. Plant Food was the flagship restaurant of Matthew Kenney Cuisine, a sprawling, health-focused company that until recently operated, managed or invested in more than 50 restaurants across the globe, from Los Angeles to Sao Paulo to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
But Duran grew to resent Kenney’s visits — in part, she said, because she believed she was helping the chef cultivate a misleading image of success.
“I just knew the investors were investing in a lost cause, and I couldn’t say anything,” said Duran, who worked at the restaurant from 2021 until she quit early last year. “I would have my check bounced for the fifth pay period in a row, and Matthew Kenney would be presenting to them how amazing Plant Food + Wine is doing.”
In fact, Plant Food, which just relocated to the Four Seasons hotel in July, closed in January, the latest of at least 17 restaurants associated with Kenney that have shuttered since late 2021.
Duran is one of more than 60 former employees, jilted investors and frustrated business associates who told The New York Times of a 30-year pattern of chaotic and reckless management by Kenney, marked by businesses that opened to positive press and then closed, often quickly and amid a flurry of lawsuits, unpaid bills and bounced paychecks.
They said Kenney has been able to persist, despite repeated failures to meet his financial obligations, in part because of his prominent role since the mid-2000s in promoting vegan cooking. Many investors and employees said they were willing to overlook financial warning signs and excuse his past failures because of their devotion to animal welfare and mindful nutrition.
In response to questions about his business practices and personal conduct, Kenney called the Times’ reporting “despicable,” saying it lacked “a basic understanding of actual facts” and was “not based in reality.”
Kenney’s business woes were no secret. The chef and his companies have been named in dozens of lawsuits in at least nine states, alleging a variety of misdeeds including illegal labor practices and stiffing creditors, landlords and employees. According to public records, Kenney owes $1.2 million in back taxes in New York state alone.
Yet Kenney maintained what appeared to be a glamorous lifestyle — including renting a $20,000-a-month house in West Los Angeles — paid for in part by his companies.
Other aspects of Kenney’s conduct seemed to be at odds with the holistic, empathetic ethos his brand espouses. He was sued for harassment and discrimination by a Black employee, for instance, and in graphic text messages with a co-worker, viewed by the Times, he frequently used racist and misogynistic language.
And although Kenney became a prominent figure in veganism, championing its virtues to investors and the public, he conceded to the Times that he had eaten seafood a “few times,” though he claimed to have done so “openly” and not to have eaten “land-based flesh” in more than 20 years.
In addition, employees felt pressure to run interference for Kenney’s romantic relationships, including two with young women who worked for him.
“We were all specifically told not to tell the women he brought that he had a girlfriend,” Duran said. “And we also knew when the girlfriend would come not to mention the dates he would bring to the restaurant.”
Peter Cassell, a restaurant industry veteran who was general manager at one of Kenney’s New York City restaurants in the early 2000s, was blunt in his estimation of Kenney. “Checks bounced all the time,” he said. “Nobody that I know that has ever dealt with Matthew has ever gotten away clean.”
For the cause
News articles about Kenney’s failure to pay bills (including to Donald Trump, his first restaurant’s landlord) have appeared for decades, starting in New York, where he began his career in the 1990s, and following him as his businesses expanded to Maine, Oklahoma, Florida and California.
Pure Food + Wine, the raw vegan restaurant he opened with Sarma Melngailis, his ex-girlfriend and business partner, was featured in “Bad Vegan,” the hit 2022 Netflix series. Kenney was pushed out of the restaurant by Jeffrey Chodorow, the restaurant’s financial backer, who described Kenney in the series as “a very talented chef who had a bad financial history.”
In January, the Los Angeles Times published an investigation detailing the collapse of at least 12 of Kenney’s businesses, including allegations that he owes millions of dollars in rent and $1 million to a former investor.
But through it all, Kenney has continued to win over new investors.
Cindy Landon, an actress, producer and widow of Hollywood star Michael Landon, said she decided to become an investor in Plant Food + Wine when it opened in 2015 despite being warned by her business manager and others that Kenney shouldn’t be trusted, because of his previous failed business ventures.
“He’s charming. He’s bright. He’s passionate,” Landon said. “I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to move forward on this.’”
Landon is among seven people who told the Times they had invested in Kenney’s businesses in recent years and felt he took advantage of their commitment to veganism. They said that Kenney provided unreliable financial data about their investments, if any at all, and that they now assume their money is gone.
“In the world of veganism and animal rights, there are a lot of extremely wealthy people,” said Richard Weintraub, a prominent LA-based real estate developer and an investor in Plant Food. “We really want to trust, and we really want to believe that these people have the same interests at heart.”
Kenney painted a rosy economic picture of his businesses in a March 2022 email to an investor that was viewed by the Times. “We hope to be generating more than 100M system wide this year and 250 next year,” he wrote, adding that his company was valued between $50 million and $100 million.
Six months later, New York state auctioned off the contents of his Manhattan restaurant Sestina for unpaid taxes.
Even some business associates who said they feel wronged by Kenney express admiration for his talents as a chef. Kyle Saliba said he has opened five businesses with Kenney in the past 25 years, including a Double Zero pizzeria in New York. He called Kenney a “visionary” and a “genius.”
But he also said the chef had “no entrepreneurial skills,” and he is suing Kenney and two of his businesses, alleging fraud and seeking damages of more than $25 million.
Moving money
Chaotic financial operations were characteristic of Matthew Kenney Cuisine, according to more than 30 former employees.
In the summer of 2022, Rebecca Rubel was put in charge of human resources for Matthew Kenney Cuisine, which then operated about 12 restaurants in the United States. She said she routinely responded to employees complaining that their paychecks had bounced.
Rubel recalled conversations she had with Matt Bronfeld, the director of hospitality for Matthew Kenney Cuisine. “It was always the same thing: ‘We’re just waiting for some money from an investor, and then it should be fine,’” she said. “It never really ended up being fine.”
Bronfeld’s job gave him operational oversight of Kenney’s restaurants in the United States from 2018 to 2023. Bronfeld had an unusual background for such a job, having been convicted in 2015 of grand larceny and sentenced to five years’ probation for embezzling more than $400,000 from former business associates.
He said Kenney knew of the conviction when Bronfeld was promoted to the director role after just a year with the company.
Bronfeld became the main corporate contact for managers of the indi